The Accessibility of Cultural Heritage. A New Perspective Between a Relational Gaze and the Philosophy of Gesture

The Italian museum system made significant progress in terms of accessibility. Despite the considerable increase in the number of people with functional limitations who visit museums, the percentage of those who do not visit museums is still very high, whatever the presence of limitations. Based on this empirical evidence, a new approach to the problem of accessibility becomes necessary. The paper argues in favor of a performative conception of accessibility. More specifically, it will be shown how the approach of relational sociology and the philosophy of gesture allow for elaborating a broader notion of accessibility than the prescriptive one that currently inspires most interventions. By redefining accessibility in terms of a social relationship that combines the adaptive dimension with the transmission of meanings, new possibilities emerge to make a museum visit an attractive and engaging experience. This guiding idea started to be implemented through the experimental project Smart Cultural Heritage 4 All realized at the Museo Sannitico of Campobasso (Italy).